Davies To Aprilia

By Henny Ray Abrams | 2/2/2009 12:00 AM

BROOKLYN, NY, FEB 2: Chaz Davies will ride the second factory Aprilia in the Daytona SportBike class of the AMA Pro Road Race Championship. The deal was confirmed on Monday, three days after Davies showed up on the Daytona 200 entry list on the number ‘57’ Factory Aprilia Millennium Technologies team. Davies will partner Alaskan Ben Thompson on the KWS Motorsports’ Aprilia RSV 1000R when the season kicks off at Daytona in a little over a month. The ride allows Davies to return to the U.S., where he rode last year for the Attack Kawasaki team. The highlight of his season came in Daytona, where he was awarded the victory after his close friend Josh Hayes was disqualified for having an illegal crankshaft in his Erion Honda CBR600RR. He followed that with a podium in the Formula Xtreme race at Barber Motorsports Park. But the Supersport season didn’t go as well. His best finishes were fourths in the first and last races of the season. In between, his best finish was a seventh and there were a number of finishes outside the top ten. He finished sixth in Supersport and tied for fifth in Formula Xtreme. Now he gets a fresh start on a new team with a new bike, a prospect that’s as exciting as it is daunting. The heavyweight Italian V-twin has to compete against the class standard Japanese four-cylinder middleweights. Davies and Thompson tested the Aprilia at Roebling Road Raceway in Georgia two weeks ago. No times were released and Davies hasn’t spoken publicly about the test. Following the test, he spent several days in California hanging out with Hayes, then returned to his home in Wales at the end of last week. The team won’t be taking part in the February 2-4 test at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.